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Classic Cartoons Marred by Digital Restoration
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "When classic animated films undergo digital restoration, key features can get lost in translation. The Wall Street Journal reports that the process meant to smooth over scratches and dirt specks on old film "can also remove some of the lines that make up the animation -- for example, blurring Tom's face in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, or erasing lines in Woody Woodpecker's fast-moving beak." "
here's a non-registration-required before-and-after example.
What rolls down stairs
Alone or in pairs...
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack
And fits on your back?
It's Log! Log! Log!
It's Lo-og, it's Lo-og
It's big, it's heavy
It's wood!
It's Lo-og, Lo-og
It's better than bad
It's good!!!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
In this case, it is the tool. Or more precisely, misusing the tool. The DVNS tech is designed for live action movies and thus does a poor job on drawn cartoons. The "correct" method for restoring cartoon film is to take apart each cell and restore the cell individually. This process is similar to colorizing a black and white movie, and produces results that can look better than the original film!
According to the article given by the first poster, they even have digital tools to speed up this process as well. Thus the only real excuse is "we don't want to spend the time or money". *shrug*
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Here is David Mackenzie's website (mentioned in the WSJ article, but not linked), which shows a lot of examples:
http://lyris-lite.net/dnr.htmlGood point. One WB cartoon I haven't seen in decades is arguably the funniest. Can't find it anywhere:
In one (very recursive) scene, we find ourselves inside a movie theater, with a carefully illustrated scene of Bogart and Bacall playing on the screen. The "movie", of course, is the weird take of Jones, Freleng, et al. on live action: for example, Bogie casually tosses a flame-thrower to Bacall, instead of a Zippo, when she asks for a light.
At one point, something explodes in Bogie's face (hey, WB cartoon, gotta have at least one explosion). With his soot-covered face, "Bogie" suddenly does an impersonation of Rochester, Jack Benny's long-suffering man-servant.
Now, we can argue back and forth about the racism involved, but the sad fact is that it was a very funny short that fell well within even the most progressive norms of its day. (I honestly don't think any kids today would even get the Rochester joke -- if yours can, dear reader, you have some darn erudite children, I must say.)
Now, if this cartoon was produced today, it would be deemed offensive, and rightfully so. But shouldn't we be allowed to see these older shorts.. while not removing them from the context of their times?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
This is what happened to _Fantasia_. Around 1985 or 1986 in the dawn of the CD era, Disney decided to digitally re-record the entire soundtrack following the original score exactly with a new orchestra. The VHS tape you saw no doubt contains the new recordings. A lot of people felt that the re-recordings were inferior to the original soundtrack, which was conducted by the great Leopold Stokowski. Disney decided to restore the original soundtrack for the DVD. In fact, the digital re-recordings have been out of print for some years and to my knowledge the only soundtrack CD available is now the original recordings conducted by Stokowski. Since you don't like the DVD music, I'm sorry, but it is what the original film had and what you liked was the re-recordings. I don't criticize you for a question of taste, but I want you to realize that the vast majority of fans of this film prefer the original recordings in all its faulty, mono sound. So you see, the VHS tape you saw is arugably the worst of both worlds - inferior video (even you admit this) and a re-recorded soundtrack in place of the original one.